Free Republic

Workers are sleeping on the job at the U.S. Census Bureau and the agency is asking employees to stop napping in public areas of its Maryland headquarters. A memo sent Tuesday said officials are fielding an increased number of complaints about colleagues “sleeping in public areas.”

LOS ANGELES -- Next month's opening of the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools will be auspicious for a reason other than its both storied and infamous history as the former Ambassador Hotel, where the Democratic presidential contender was assassinated in 1968. With an eye-popping price tag of $578 million, it will mark the inauguration of the nation's most expensive public school ever. The K-12 complex to house 4,200 students has raised eyebrows across the country as the creme de la creme of "Taj Mahal" schools, $100 million-plus campuses boasting both architectural panache and deluxe amenities. .... At RFK, the features...

Thanks to a stimulus windfall, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has new funds to support an eclectic array of projects and organizations, from the American Samoa Council on Arts, Culture and Humanities to puppeteers across the country. Last year Congress allocated $50 million of the $787 billion stimulus bill — designed to stave off a second Great Depression — to the National Endowment for the Arts. Congressional Republicans opposed, charging that the funds would essentially increase the NEA’s budget of $145 million by 34 percent. The NEA divided its stimulus money in two: $19.8 million was given to...

California will establish a high-profile, $600 million research center to devise solutions for global warming, the Public Utilities Commission decided in a 5-0 vote Thursday. The California Institute for Climate Solutions will have a $60 million budget each year for 10 years. The money will come from ratepayers of the state's major utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, which serves much of Northern California. The new institute, which will seek matching funds to expand its reach, will administer research grants; work to transfer technologies to commercial businesses; and develop a related workforce for these companies. Undecided is where the new...

WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The United States is wasting huge sums of money on technology meant to thwart attacks on airliners when it should rely more on profiling to identify would-be terrorists, the trade group for U.S. airlines said on Thursday. "I think we're not on the right track yet," Malcolm Armstrong of the Air Transport Association of America told a congressionally mandated commission. "We're going to wind up spending a billion dollars on technology that is not deserving of that much money." Armstrong is senior vice president for operations and safety at the association, whose 22 member airlines...